Software Process Interview Questions And Answers

The key practices of software-producing and acquiring organizations needs significant interpretation or tailoring prior to application. The tailoring involves the identification of process artifacts, process tailoring, and their relationships to project artifacts. Subsequent to this process, the nature of various kinds of tailoring used is explored in the definition and development of software process descriptions. Various techniques that are appropriate to each type of tailoring are then discussed. The approach is built on Software Process Framework, which serves for providing guidance for designing, analyzing, and reviewing the process of software for consistency with the Software Capability Maturity Model.

Various tailoring plans are implemented by including mandatory processes, process waivers, tailored processes / procedures, Lifecycle models. The tailoring plans are reviewed at enterprise level but owned and updated only at the project level.

Process areas in Capabilty Maturity model describe the features of a products development. These process areas help to identify the level of maturity an organization has attained. These mainly include:

Project planning and monitoring
Risk Management
Requirements development
Process and Product quality assurance
Product integration
Requirement management
Product integration
Configuration management

Maturity level of a process defines the nature and maturity present in the organization. These levels help to understand and set a benchmark for the organization.

Five levels that are identified are:

Level 1: Adhoc or initial
Level 2: Repeatable
Level 3: Defined
Level4: managed
Level 5: Optimized.

A software process or software development process is a method or structure expected to be followed for the development of software. There are several tasks and activities that take place in this process. Different processes like waterfall and iterative exists. In these processes; tasks like analysis, coding, testing and maintenance play an important role.

Once the test is executed, a report of the results is displayed by WinRunner. The report shows all checkpoints, error and system messages that were encountered during execution. The test results window is used to account for any mismatches detected at checkpoints.

WinRunner has two types of recording modes:

1. Context Sensitive recording – records the operations that are preformed in an application by identifying the GUI objects.

2. Analog recording – records the inputs from keyboard, mouse clicks, the x and y coordinates that are travelled by the mouse pointer across the screen.

Quality Assurance (QA): QA refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of process which is followed to produce a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the expectation.

Quality Control (QC): Concern with the quality of the product. QC finds the defects and suggests improvements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC. The QC is the responsibility of the tester.

Software Testing: is the process of ensuring that product which is developed by the developer meets the user requirement. The motive to perform testing is to find the bugs and make sure that they get fixed.

Quality Assurance (QA): QA refers to the planned and systematic way of monitoring the quality of process which is followed to produce a quality product. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusts the process to meet the expectation.

Quality Control (QC): Concern with the quality of the product. QC finds the defects and suggests improvements. The process set by QA is implemented by QC. The QC is the responsibility of the tester.

Software Testing: is the process of ensuring that product which is developed by the developer meets the user requirement. The motive to perform testing is to find the bugs and make sure that they get fixed.

A good time to start the QA is from the beginning of the project startup. This will lead to plan the process which will make sure that product coming out meets the customer quality expectation. QA also plays a major role in the communication between teams. It gives time to step up the testing environment. The testing phase starts after the test plans are written, reviewed and approved.

Verification: process of evaluating steps which is followed up to development phase to determine whether they meet the specified requirements for that stage.

Validation: process of evaluating product during or at the end of the development process to determine whether product meets specified requirements.

Difference between Verification and Validation:

Verification is Static Testing where as Validations is Dynamic Testing.
Verification takes place before validation.
Verification evaluates plans, documents, requirements and specifications, where as Validation evaluates product.
Verification inputs are checklist, issues list, walkthroughs and inspection, where as in Validation testing of actual product.
Verification output is set of documents, plans, specifications and requirement documents where as in Validation actual product is output.

The difference between smoke and sanity testing is described below:

Sanity testing is performed when new build is released after fixing bugs where as smoke testing is performed to check the major functionalities of the application.
Sanity is performed by the tester or the developer but smoke testing can be performed by the tester or developer.
Smoke testing is performed earlier where as sanity is performed after the smoke testing.
Sanity testing is narrow and deep approach of testing and smoke testing is focused testing based on major functionalities.

Destructive testing includes methods where material is broken down to evaluate the mechanical properties, such as strength, toughness and hardness.

For example, finding the quality of a weld is good enough to withstand extreme pressure and also to verify the properties of a material.

Benefits of Destructive Testing (DT)

Verifies properties of a material
Determines quality of welds
Helps you to reduce failures, accidents and costs
Ensures compliance with regulations

The testware is:

The subset of software which helps in performing the testing of application.
Testware are required to plan, design, and execute tests. It contains documents, scripts, inputs, expected results, set-up and additional software or utilities used in testing.
Testware is term given to combination of all utilities and application software that required for testing a software package.

Testware is special because it has:

1. Different purpose
2. Different metrics for quality and
3. Different users

The difference between Retesting and Regression testing are below:

Retesting is done to verify defects fixes where as regression is perform to check if the defect fix have not impacted other functionality that was working fine before doing changes in the code.
Retesting is planned testing based on the defect fixes listed where as regression is not be always specific to any defect fix. Also regression can be executed for some modules or all modules.
Retesting concern with executing those test cases that are failed earlier whereas regression concern with executing test cases that was passed in earlier builds.
Retesting has higher priority over regression, but in some case retesting and regression testing are carried out in parallel.

Priority: concern with application from the business point of view.
It answers: How quickly we need to fix the bug? Or How soon the bug should get fixed?
Severity: concern with functionality of application. It deals with the impact of the bug on the application.

Bug Life Cycle:

When a tester finds a bug .The bug is assigned with NEW or OPEN status.
The bug is assigned to development project manager who will analyze the bug .He will check whether it is a valid defect. If it is not valid bug is rejected, now status is REJECTED.
If not, next the defect is checked whether it is in scope. When bug is not part of the current release .Such defects are POSTPONED
Now, Tester checks whether similar defect was raised earlier. If yes defect is assigned a status DUPLICATE
When bug is assigned to developer. During this stage bug is assigned a status IN-PROGRESS
Once code is fixed. Defect is assigned with FIXED status.
Next the tester will re-test the code. In case the test case passes the defect is CLOSED
If the test case fails again the bug is RE-OPENED and assigned to the developer. That’s all to Bug Life Cycle.

Ex.

High Priority and Low Severity:
Company logo is not properly displayed on their website.
High Priority and High Severity:
Suppose you are doing online shopping and filled payment information, but after submitting the form, you get a message like "Order has been cancelled."
Low Priority and High Severity:
If we have a typical scenario in which the application get crashed, but that scenario exists rarely.
Low Priority and Low Severity:
There is a mistake like "You have registered success" instead of successfully, success is written.

Software problem are listed below:

1. Purchasing the license of tool (QTP, selenium, QC, LR)
2. Lack of skilled Tester to run the tool
3. Expectation that automated tests will find a lot of new defects
4. Maintenance of automated tests
5. Technical problems of tools

QA stands for QUALITY ASSURANCE. QA team assures the quality by monitor the whole development process. QA tracks the outcomes and adjusting process to meet the expectation.

The role of Quality Assurance is discussed below:

QA team is responsible for monitoring the process to be carried out for development.
Responsibilities of QA team are planning testing execution process.
QA Lead creates the time tables and agrees on a Quality Assurance plan for the product.
QA team communicated QA process to the team members.
QA team ensures traceability of test cases to requirements.

BUILD: is a number given to installable software that is given to testing team for testing by the development team. Build number assigned are incremental and sequential.

RELEASE: is a number given to installable software that is handed over to customer by the developer or tester.
The information of build, release and version are displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version build thet are using.

eg "9.4.123.2" (Release Number.Version Number.Build Number.Patch Number)

BUILD: is a number given to installable software that is given to testing team for testing by the development team. Build number assigned are incremental and sequential.

RELEASE: is a number given to installable software that is handed over to customer by the developer or tester.
The information of build, release and version are displayed in software help page. Using this build and release customer can let the customer team know which release version build thet are using.

Following are some challenges of software testing

1. Application should be stable enough to be tested.
2. Testing always under time constraint
3. Understanding requirements, Domain knowledge and business user perspective understanding
4. Which tests to execute first?
5. Testing the Complete Application
6. Regression testing
7. Lack of skilled testers.
8. Changing requirements
9. Lack of resources, tools and training